The antidote to ideologies

REVEALED: Angela Merkel – Rigid serial conformist…..

…and ruthless career technocrat

Angela Merkel is often depicted by the Western media as a boring, mousey and indecisive physicist obsessed by rules and the Euro ideal. In fact, she is none of these things. Her unusual and at times murky past suggests that she is driven by the ideal of technocratic power, has no firm belief in anything, and is ruthlessly disloyal when it suits her. Her role in the former East Germany has been cleaned up by those around her. But today, The Slog puts some flesh on the real character behind the Chancellor’s image.

Angela Dorothea Merkel sits in the Berlin Chancellery today, the mistress of Europe. An extraordinary combination of bizarre events and her own driven will have put her there. But we really do not know enough about this woman to whom, it seems, the citizens of 27 countries have handed the leadership of Europe without a single vote being cast. The fact is, she has been underestimated by every male boss she has had during her remorseless rise to power….and each one has paid for that with his career. There is far, far more to Frau Doktor Merkel than most people realise.

Angela Merkel’s father Horst Kasner died last September aged 85. Some secrets surrounding this enigmatic man have died with him, but quite a few things are a matter of public record. Born in 1926, he served on the Russian front during World Ward II and, at the age of 19 in 1943, was taken prisoner.

How long he remained in Russian hands – and when he got back to Germany – is not recorded. But somewhere along the way, he became a clergyman, and married a Polish woman, Herlind Jentzsch, in 1952. She gave birth to Angela in 1954, and then three weeks later Kasner did what almost no other German had ever done: he moved from West Germany to the DDR. By choice, he became an Osti.

Sources protective of Angela Merkel claim that her father was merely posted there by the Lutheran clergy, but others deny this. He was known at the time as ‘Red Kasner’, and given a privileged position in East Germany. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Merkel Senior openly criticised West Germany. In 1989, he opposed reunification. The family had a smart apartment and access to two cars. Almost uniquely, Horst Kasner was allowed by the Party to travel to the West, so loyal was he felt to be.

All of this did young Angela no harm at all. Despite widespread harassment of the Christian Church in the DDR, she was educated – and pushed forward – like the daughter of a senior Party member.

German biographers have talked of “near panic” setting in when former Kasner neighbours in Templin are asked about the family – and especially its eldest child. One told me – on a promise of strict anonymity:

“Horst was a nice man, very friendly, all the children know him, he was a pastor. But he had influence, all the adults are knowing this. And Angela quickly became an enthusiasm for the regime, and persuading young people to be loyal.”

Although learning Russian was obligatory in East Germany, the young Angela excelled in the language, and undertook regular visits to Moscow and Leningrad. Russian officials today confirm that she speaks Russian “fluently with a very slight accent”. Putin, as it happens, speaks German with no accent at all: he spent fifteen years as a KGB agent liaising with the DDR’s notorious security agency, the Stasi. Horst Kasner was friendly with prominent Stasi alumni, and belonged to the “Christian Peace Conference”, a communist camouflage organisation funded by the KGB in Moscow. Another member of the CPC, Albrecht Schoenherr, had supplied him with the job as manager of the pastoral college.

Merkel is not, as is so often claimed, a physicist: she is a chemist specialising in the atomic physical nature of chemicals – a subject at the cutting edge of scientific development. Shortly after graduating in 1976, on a trip to Leningrad she met a fellow scientist, Ulrich Merkel, and they were married the following year. While Merkel completed a doctorate, her husband paid the rent on (and renovated) the flat they shared. The doctorate complete, Angela left her husband, taking the only thing of any value in the flat – a fridge – with her.

Ulrich had not the slightest inkling that his wife was about to leave: she hired a small van one morning and took the fridge. There was no discussion and no note. She divorced him in 1982. Her first husband has never remarried, and lives quietly in Frankfurt.

Angela meanwhile went from strength to strength in her career as a valued scientist and loyal DDR citizen. By now, however, Merkel’s fascination with power and political communication was becoming a big part of her life. Her specialism was youth propaganda: she became politically involved in the Freie Deutsche Jugend (Free German Youth), the politicised youth East German dictatorship. She rose quickly within the organisation, becoming Secretary of Political Education – the most important role in the organisation.

Today, Merkel insists that her job was menial, involving “organising theatre tickets and the like”. But this is simply untrue: she was an ambitious political activist. School-friends from her childhood town Templin remember the German leader still as a “Marxist loyal to the Party line”, in the furtherance of which she held a formal position within her class. A student who knows Merkel from the Karl Marx University in Leipzig, remembers a “convinced communist who brought her class-mates into line”.

We have no idea what the ambitious young Communist really thought when the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, but she wasn’t slow to respond to events. Within three weeks, she joined the Demokratischer Aufbruch (Democratic Revival), a Party modelled on the Centre-Right CDU in the West. She immediately took over the same function as she’d had in the old FDJ – redefined in democracy-speak as “Press spokesperson”.

It was soon revealed that her boss in the DA, Wolfgang Schnur, had been a Stasi collaborator. Although Merkel denies this today, most of those there at the time are sure she leaked this information to the press. She took over his job.

In the first and only democratic East German elections that followed, leader Lothar de Maizière became President. (Merkel’s father Horst was a close friend of Lothar’s father – himself a senior Stasi accolyte). The 1990 Reunification saw him get a Cabinet post under Helmut Kohl, with a job as his Deputy for protege Angela. Two months later, he too was suddenly found to have ‘connections’ with the Stasi. He resigned in disgrace….and within two months Merkel was in the Cabinet. De Maizière intimates still maintain today that he was ‘fitted up’ based on very flimsy evidence. Merkel denies any involvement in the affair.

By now, the rapidly rising young Osti – ‘Mein Madchen’ – my girl, as Kohl patronisingly described her – had a new partner, Joachim Sauer. Like her, he too is an extremely eminent chemist working in the sought-after field of atomic and sub-atomic physical chemistry. From the moment their relationship began, Angela Merkel adopted her husband’s very pro-American views: the nation she had been brought up to see as The Enemy rapidly became her inspiration.In December 1998, they married. A few months earlier, her mentor Helmut Kohl had lost the election, and Merkel called publicly for the ‘old leaders’ of Germany to give way. In the media furore that followed, she stepped into the vacuum, and became the CDU’s leader.

Joachim Sauer’s scientific specialism, and his influence on the German Chancellor, are both highly significant. He too was a prominent Osti: in 1977, he joined the Academy of Sciences Central Institute of Physical Chemistry in East Berlin, one of the leading seats of learning in the former DDR. The record is silent on when he met Merkel, but he divorced his first wife in the same year that the German Chancellor got self-awarded custody of her first husband’s fridge.

Shortly after German reunification, Sauer became the Deputy Technical Director of BIOSYM Technologies, San Diego USA. He remained an advisor for BIOSYM until 2002. The company makes practical use of biopharmaceutical design, and was by then (1990) a strong player in what is mysteriously described as “the broader field of scientific information services”. One of the main buyers and supporters of this technology at the time was the Pentagon. Says a source in Washington:

“There has always been a sense that Sauer was a former East German Scientist who was, in the post Soviet collapse period, an important guy to debrief. He wasn’t a spy, but he was the best in his field. It’s not dissimilar to what the Pentagon did with Nazi rocket scientists after 1945.”

During October 2011, The Slog posted that the US had decided ‘to bet the farm on Germany as the key European ally’. I also posted last year about the number of Bourse alliances that have been proposed and signed between Germany and the US since Merkel came to power six years ago. The Berlin/Washington relationship became very strong after her accession, driven by her husband, and a ‘good fit’ relationship with George W. Bush and his close advisers.

The latter part of Merkel’s meteoric career progression in well known. But it does no harm to observe her behaviour. Although firmly on the CDU’s Right at the time, when the German electorate decided in 2005 that it didn’t like any of the Parties that much, Merkel was quick to sup with the Devil, forming a ‘Grand Coalition’ with the SPD and CSU that made her Chancellor. She was also quick to shaft the SPD in the 2009 elections, accusing Schroder of being anti-American…a slur designed to make him look out of date, whereas she had embraced the free-market ideal and could take Germany to greater heights. With the help of FDP support, she won.

The FDP is not a eurosceptic Party, but it has consistently opposed deeper involvement of German money in the solution to ezone problems. Together, Merkel and her Finance Minister Wolfgang Schauble have consistently made and broken promises about the issue to their FDP partner. (Merkel also shafted Schauble with the same yardbrush she used to get rid of Kohl in 1998, when he too was an ‘old leader’. Now she needs his advice, he is back in place again).

Angela Merkel doesn’t like Nicolas Sarkozy, and appears to have been influential in persuading the US that they should drop him as a close ally. This is today seen by the State Department as extremely sound advice. She detests the media nickname ‘Merkozy’, primarily because she sees herself as totally in command. She is in fact much closer to Mario Draghi, a former Goldman Sachs chief now in charge at the ECB. Her view of him as a great technocrat was also influenced by Joachim Sauer, who is a big fan. And although Draghi’s clever establishment of an ECB independence dismayed her late last year, she sees him very much as ‘correct’ in the sense of paying debts, and tight central fiscal management.

Effectively, the US Government and its key agencies now have all the major posts in the EU/IMF/ECB leadership occupied by ‘our people’. Last year The Slog posted about the Strauss-Kahn affair, and how secret American support for Christine Lagarde had ensured her completely undeserved appointment as Managing Director of the IMF. In turn, of course, there are American-trained bankers running Italy and Greece. And as of Friday late afternoon, the Germans have a plan on the table to remove Greek sovereignty.

But perhaps most important of all, the European Union is headed by a former Communist control freak, with a penchant for ruthless disloyalty in order to get what she wants.

The single-minded objective of American ezone diplomacy for the time being is to do whatever it takes to firewall the US against catastrophic ClubMed defaults. They have a very obvious ally in Angela Merkel, but one is left wondering whether they fully appreciate the profundity of her power-mania. She is a technocrat who believes in nothing except ‘good order’ and obeying the rules….so long as she is making the rules. There is little evidence from her career history that she sees the rules as applying to her. There is also no evidence at all that she is either libertarian or democratic: and as such, therefore, she is the perfect Fuhrerine for the European Union.

I proposed to some of my friends last year that the impression Merkel was giving was that she is a childless dinasour from the DDR whose Stasi Files have still not seen the light of day – nobody laughed

Thanks for that John. With my westernised mindset, I’ve always wondered how Frau Merkel got where she is without any political style, patronage or charisma. I suspected that she must have had ruthlessness coupled with great intelligence and yet, like most, I could only see an inoffensive motherly lady. (BTW, if you’ve ever tried to understand physical chemistry, you would realise it is not for ordinary mortals.) You have filled in that gap and I appreciate it.
But, don’t you think those qualities leave her vulnerable? She seems to lack the creativeness necessary to survive against someone like, say Draghi, who already seems to be wrong footing her.

Kinda gives an interesting twist to the unfolding tragedy that is the EU: the lights are surely going out all over Europe. For ***** sake, will some of our politicians here in the UK get a backbone and bloody do something.

Sounds a VERY Americocentric analysis to me with all the reds-under-the-bed fears of McCarthy times.

“…… European Union is headed by a former Communist control freak, with a penchant for ruthless disloyalty in order to get what she wants.”
Take out the “communist” and you have just about ANY European – or Middle Eastern or even American – political leader.

“……. but one is left wondering whether they fully appreciate the profundity of her power-mania. She is a technocrat who believes in nothing except ‘good order’ and obeying the rules….so long as she is making the rules. ”
John I VERY much doubt that any American political analyst would underestimate her ruthless determination and political cunning – especially with “Commie bitch” scrawled over her profile.

The Americans are just putting out this “information” so that, down the line a whiles, they will be able to dump her in the Stasi soup. I think.

Gulp! As I’ve been saying for a very long time, a large part of Europe and the EU is being run by old commies/wannabe fascists – all totalitarian socialists – who have little interest in western democracy/accountability and are still peddling their Marxist beliefs.
Your characterisation of Merkel fits that model perfectly.
Either the German CDU has been fooled by her or it’s not really a conservative party at all. The German people ought to be told.

Just like the USSR, many of the old commie comrades suddenly became rich oligarchs and powerful people when their empire collapsed and Russia switched over to fascism. It’s to switch from communism to fascism because at root they are two sides of the same coin.

And let us not forget Mr Tony Blair, a Hard Lefty in his younger days who led ban-the-bomb marches and then suddenly became leader of New Labour, a progressively fascist version of the Old Labour commie party. Then of course there’s Gordoom Brown, widely seen as an Old Labour Marxist who struggled to adopt Blair’s new fascist model.

The appointment of undemocratic “technocrats” (aka Marxist cronies & “true believers”) into positions of power & control is classic socialism as we saw in the USSR, Britain under the Blair/Brown (the FSA etc) and now increasingly across the EU (Greece & Italy). Let us not forget Mr Barroso, a Portuguese commie ex-Maoist.

I might also mention the two Milipedes: sons of an immigrant Marxist where political discussions were a regular feature at the dinner table during their formative years. One son switched across to Blair’s New Labour fascism whilst the other stayed with his true Marxist beliefs of Old Labour.

Sarko is doing a good job of shafting himself without any help from the Lady. Have a look at todays French papers about his TV appearance yesterday. Amazingly he got some 16.5m viewers, most of whom will not now be voting for him.

@Cr iggion I agree with you Fine but the alternative if even worth. That individual lives in cloud cookoo land. Hence the Fuhrerin has decided to come to france to help on the campaign trail. It will do him no good, I happen to live in Britanny where the memories of 60 years ago still are very vivid.

Had the pleasure of meeting her boyfriend in 1980,whilst I was attending a conference on physical chemistry in Berlin-horrendously clever.He came across as quite “nice”yet all his colleagues and students were terrified of him.By the way,if she knows any physical chemistry beyond 2nd chemistry I’ll eat my fat.She was spoonfed his work,which was even then behind the curve,but very good at citing American,British and European work though.

JW a very good resume and correct to the last dot, one thing I do not understand is that the youth of Germany has not made more noise against her. OR alternatively what worries me more, the old mentality of “following the leader” is still prevailing. If that is so God help us.

So, The EU is being stuffed with socialists who have distinctly dodgy links and associations with the communist past. We all know that communism and socialism do not work and that despite protestations to the contrary sooner or later the wheels come off any economy where such ideologies have undue influence. It seems, at first sight, that in seeking by whatever underhand means to further their cause all that Merkel et al are doing is blindly and blithely sowing the seeds of their own destruction and that of western Europe as a whole.

I am not a conspiracy theorist, but it strikes me that on the face of it this is all a bit too simplistic. There has to be a deeper, more long term, purpose behind all this, otherwise what is the point of destruction simply for its own sake. You state, and I believe you, that she has no particular concern for the wellbeing of others, so we can rule out the motivation of altruism. It cannot be the advancement of global communism because that idea is so discredited and freighted with horrors as to be impossible. And yet, the picture you paint of The Fuhrerin is of a communist inspired changeling or sleeper quietly, methodically and ruthlessly preparing the way for an invasion from the east (you mention Putin, that cannot have been unimportant).

The American involvement here is especially perplexing. I can acept that they would wish to see the demise of the Euro in order to preserve the status of the dollar as the world’s reserve currency and so will do whatever needs to be done to effect that outcome. But surely, at any point in the Euro’s existance it would have been eminently possible for them to make it such an unattractive proposition that no one in their right mind would have touched it with their neighbour’s barge pole, much less their own. So the question is, why now and not then?

Please accept my sincere apologies for taking this thread partly off theme for a brief moment.
Today I received an email asking me to sign a petition to support a campaign against a threat to internet freedom currently up for EU ratification.
It states that ACTA, a global treaty, could allow corporations to censor the Internet. Negotiated in secret by a small number of rich countries and corporate powers, it would set up a shadowy new anti-counterfeiting body to allow private interests to police everything that we do online and impose massive penalties — even prison sentences — against people they say have harmed their business.
I have followed the Slog for some time and wouldn’t like this to happen here.
For Sloggers who may wish to learn more here’s a link.http://www.avaaz.org/en/eu_save_the_internet/?vl
Thank you for your forbearance.

@BT.
They don’t call it the E.U.S.S.R. for nothing, in the past days we have seen the E.U. promulgate ideas that prove it is morphing into an albeit slightly benign clone of the U.S.S.R. before our very eyes, if I remember correctly the Soviet Union and its satellite countries were very adept at putting “sleepers” in place all over the Western world, many were exposed post 91 but I’m sure a large percentage were not.
A considerable number of those people were genuinely committed to the ideology and will have made it their business to be quietly absorbed into the post Soviet new Europe and will still be motivated and ready to act on their ideological principles if and when the right opportunity’s in the correct circumstances present themselves.

Have a listen to these interviews which I came across on you tube. The CIA funded the British pro Europe campaign heavily. Why I don’t know but this is Ted Heath etc talking about it. To many wheels turning with in wheels for me to figure out but the Yanks for whatever reason are neck deep in the European project.

Yes, I know, and it’s in keeping with everything the EU want, which is to make sure nothing bad or remotely unpleasant can be said about the Elite.
We are in the last year possibly of the internet as we know it.

You would think so! But that would not be in the interests of the PTB to disclose such information. Hitler may have been defeated, but the 3rd Reich just went underground to America/South America as you know and is now manifesting itself once again as a fascist regime in Europe and America. Imho

“We all know that communism and socialism do not work and that […] sooner or later the wheels come off any economy where such ideologies have undue influence.”

You’re absolutely right. Socialism as most of us have known it in our lives equalled State ownership & control of the means of production.
This is what the Old Labour Party aimed for…everything that moved was nationalised. The USSR was an example of that model failing with horrendous consequences, China under Mao, Britain under Labour & Cuba under Castro are other examples. Plenty more.

Smart socialists (the intellectuals) realised that a new model of their beloved ideology was necessary. Enter fascism: although it remains a totalitarian ideology with Big Govt jackboots, under this model the State doen’t seek to own the means of production, just to control and regulate it. That is what Mussolin and Hitler did by having Govt cronies/apparatchiks in the boardrooms of all important companies to direct and control them and secure political funding in return for favourable laws/regulations etc. The fascist model is what we are seeing across Europe and many old commie comrades have moved across to the new model. Some still stick to the old model. But the important thing is to know that whether it’s communist or fascist, they are two sides of the same coin: totalitarian.http://flyto.zapto.org/Misc/Fascism-is-Socialism.pdf

I honestly think we have a majority of politicians who do not really believe in anything at al. They just jump on what they consider to be the best political bandwagon to further their careers & to provide them with that thing they live for, POWER. It’s easy enough to change from one extreme to another if the belief is only the particular road that is chosen to achieve your ends.

I know you have more than a basic understanding of German when it comes to reading it, so go to Google and put “IM Erika” into the search window. You will get lots of hits, but all in German.

I’ll do a resume for you a little later – paid work has to take priority – but these snippets as a taster:

“The editors came across a photo that showed a young woman who, in around 1980, was approaching the property of the Havemann family in Grünheide in Berlin: ANGELA MERKEL was to be seen on the photo, approaching the Havemann property at the time of the observation and isolation of Havemann.”

“The photo of Angela Merkel found by the WDR could not be transmitted, because Merkel had prohibited the transmission of the photos in the WDR film,”

Dunc
On the contrary, the stuff comes from a variety of sources + original research with Ostis: if anything, the Yanks have tried very hard to help her airbrush the past.
She isn’t a Commie: that’s the point….she isn’t anything except her own conception of why she should get everything she wants.
Megalomaniac, I’m afraid.

Stevie
I’m glad somebody read the piece: precisely what I’m saying.
The lives of others deservedly won Best Foreign Film oscar that year: most moving film I’ve seen in years, incredibly taut and realistic.

Thanks Max, that’s a brilliant analysis of ideology.
It should be required viewing by everybody who wants to really understand Left & Right.
The BBC should see it to understand that their decades-long propaganda about fascism being “far right” is wrong wrong wrong. It is anything but.

Edward Griffin uses the terms “collectivism” and “individualism” to describe Left & Right respectively and he’s right. Another set of terms which amount to the same thing is 100% government (Left, collectivism) and 0% government (Right, individualism).

Hamburg 1954? Well well well, there you go. Just an aside, just which Soviet Forces were located in her East German home area when she was young? Also, wasn’t there a major Soviet HQ around there? Memories and made of this.

Hold on now. Like some others have said, the Slog is the first place I go to when logging on and I lap up the straight talk, but this article needs some
time to digest. JW and most bloggers consistently knock all leaders, from where-ever. With AM there is at last someone who behaves in public with restraint and if she dislikes Sarkozy so much that’s got to be a plus. And so far she’s the only one putting some brakes on the banking fiasco.

I think you are a little off the mark with the remarks reference Sarkozy and Merkel, as Merkel is going to go campaigning with Sarkozy for the presidential race here in France very shortly. The opposition are amazed, particularly as Sarkozy has not announced to the French people that he is to run for president. That has really got up the nose of lots of people. Sarkozy is completely in the shit here, just put forward the tobin tax, to start in August and increase TVA (VAT) in October (he is assuming of course that he and his government will still be in power). The French are mad about their purchase power, pouvoir d’achat. But, Merkel and Sarkozy really are Merkozy.

Great piece of research and analysis JW. Fortunately for we sloggers, you took no time atall to grasp the nettle and have resumed your deconstructive powers in sterling form. All of the facts you uncovered about Merkel’s early life, coupled with her most recent exploits subscribes to the adage that ‘the female of the species is more deadlier than the male’. A real nasty piece of work.

No she ain’t! The problem here is much the same as it is in the UK – who and where is the better alternative. The choices are not so much between who is the best, rather, it’s between who is the least worst!

Not only deadlier; I once stumbled across a discussion thread where some people who allegedly knew her in her teenage years were reminiscing. It would appear that as a teenager she was a wee bit shag-happy! It might have been nothing more than malicious gossip – but then again, it might not have been. The character trait that did come over – she has no personal regard for the feelings of others.

I suppose the CIA would argue that their financial support to Britain for joining the EU was to have “their man” in there and influencing matters and to help prevent WWIII.
But the most important issue is that the European Movement campaign was always to spew out pro-European propaganda to sway the British voters into joining……………..it worked.

@Dolly and all EU Sloggers, Zero Hedge has an article on ACTA today which may be of interest to you. ACTA won’t be the last attempt by govts and corps to control the internet. The campaign is unrelenting.

@Mary Wilbur: Yes, you’re right. Fascism is essentially ‘state capitalism’ (sometimes also called ‘state corporatism’) irrespective of who appears to own companies & corporations. It’s aligned to socialist (collectivist) ideology, same as Communism. Two sides of the same coin.

Most interesting is what you say about Obamarama. Some people I know concluded a long while back that he’s really a socialist, despite his frequent obligatory comment of “God Bless America”.
As I’ve said here and there, China is moving from Communism to Fascism in a generation. It looks like Obama’s letting the veil drop a little…it is time for America to wake up and kick him out of office!

It won’t be long now before the BBC and MSM will have to admit that peddling fascism as ‘far-right’ is – and always has been – utter nonsense.

“She gave birth to Angela in 1954, and then three weeks later Kasner did what almost no other German had ever done: he moved from West Germany to the DDR. By choice, he became an Osti.”

This is ignorant nonsense. Many, many people moved east (OK, OK, a fraction of the reverse flow!) . Ordinary people besides intellectuals (Brecht) and apparatchiks (Honecker aus Saarbruecken!). The last provenance has been largely airbrushed away.

And what’s with “Osti”? Isn’t it enough we have the accepted neologisms “Ossie” and “Wessie”? And Ossie only came into general use after 9 November 1989. Before then, “Fluchtling” or “DDR oder BRD Staatsburger” were the most commonly used terms.

In a German context, collaboration (but staying away from active Stasi involvement) is seen as more honourable than, say, the individualistic dash for “freiheit” as so stunningly embodied in the pariah Hans Conrad Schumann, never forgiven by his Volk in deepest Saxony. This is what made bumping off Hitler so implausibly (to most non Germans) difficult.

Other than the above bile, J.W., I agree with your theses that the lady is not to be underestimated nor should we ascribe any but base political aspirations to her, power for power’s sake.

Another facet of those who lived under communism was their acquaintance with propaganda, massaging statistics, untruths and downright lies. It was a way of life – the truth could be dangerous. To advance in such a society one had to play the game, talk the talk – think the thoughts??

As the EZ stumbles towards financial catastrophe, this mindset does seem to represent those in charge? It is like 1988? A year before the fall…

Look up SOPA on Wikipedia, or a search engine, internet censorship is on the cards by a different method in the U.S. it’s under the guise of a preventing piracy bill but the powers the bill will have if passed in its present form, are so far reaching that they will give the authorities total control over what does or does not appear on the internet.

Sorry I couldn’t get back to you on the following, had to be up at 0300hrs. The original thread is probably dead now and it is still relevant to this one, so:

“The question then becomes: “were all of his destructive policies carefully planned and executed with the intent of creating the conditions whereby he could introduce a Marxist State or summat similar?” or “were they the actions of a psychopathic Marxist driven by socialist dogma who really believed he was gifted with superior skills than other people?”

I don’t know the answer to that. But I feel that the far bigger charge of it all being knowingly deliberate (conspiracy) needs some serious evidence to be believed, even though his destructive policies couldn’t have been more effective if he’d sat down with Balls and worked them all out in detail.”

I don’t agree BT. The whole point of what the Marxist does is that it doesn’t matter whether it is planned or not. The results are so destructive of the staus quo, that any effect is a result. That’s also the plus point with destruction, any idiot can achieve it. The more absurd the actions the less likely the great and good will be to attach the idea of a plan to it.

And when we say the Leftist mantra doesn’t work, shouldn’t we remember that is so only when it relaxes totalitarian control sufficiently for it’s relative merits to matter. When Capitalism was something for the down trodden to aspire to, the Left could be seen for what it is and rebelled against. How much more difficult to forsee that happening in the present balance.

@Jwoo: Howdy :-)
“The whole point of what the Marxist does is that it doesn’t matter whether it is planned or not. The results are so destructive of the staus quo…”

True, but my original comment was in the ‘kennyboy’ sub-thread where we debated whether (say) Brown’s policies were planned and intended to destroy the UK economy (ie: a conspiracy) or simply that he was a completely useless moron and whatever he did would always be a disaster.

I said that if we are to believe it was a planned conspiracy, we need more evidence than we have. Without that, I tend to accept the view that his general crazed dogma and loony Marxist beliefs were responsible for the destruction he caused. Brown is such an arrogant person that he really did believe that he knew better. And when it all went wrong, it wasn’t his fault.

I think whether there is a planned conspiracy going on or not is important because we are seeing something very similar in the EU. THIS article by our relentless Dear Leader John W is about Merkel’s personal/family history and it would be very easy to believe that there’s a wider international socialist conspiracy being played out across the whole of Europe to replace democracy with [whatever].
But we lack the evidence.

All that said, I do believe that the whole EU political scene (elected pols and unelected crats) and also in the UK Civil Service, the levers of power and control have been taken over by Lefties. But is it all planned and co-ordinated? If so, who’s pulling the strings? Or is it simply that socialists have wriggled themselves into positions of power and are doing exactly what is expected, but not in a co-ordinated way?
I don’t know the answer to these questions.

“Edward Griffin uses the terms “collectivism” and “individualism” to describe Left & Right respectively ”

Just watched the video. No he doesn’t .He says that left and right are both collective And both despise individualism.
They take turns at being in charge but it’s not democracy. We keep following the same path with both left and right supporting the main things that effect us. Banking bailouts, perpetual wars, more authoritarianism and more control. We’ll vote for anyone to get the last one out but then the pattern repeats itself again until the next election.

Great piece JW, your research is appreciated.
Going off at a tangent, I’ve often wondered about this:-
Himmler’s daughter is living near Munich, and allowed to run ‘Silent Help’, the organisation which looks after former SS members.
Perhaps somebody could confirm the truth of that.

@Bob:
Sorry, I didn’t articulate myself too well.
Those terms (collectivist & individualist) correctly apply to the Left & Right respectively but he describes how we are mislead into believing that (eg) Fascism and Nazism are of the far-rght. In fact they’re both far-left as they’re both collectivist. He also correctly describes socialism as being collectivist but socialism as we know it in the west is usually a moderated model of collectivism due to democracy. But the Labour Party is still committed to it.

I totally agree with his views and they’re exactly in line with my own research over the years and that of other researchers. The superficial unknown question is who and why have we been mislead? Well, he alludes to it being a sort of political con to make us think that we have a choice at election times when in fact we don’t. That also accords with my view that socialism is deeply entrenched in western societies and elsewhere. But I also think the Media play a large part in spreading disinformation, especially the BBC in the UK which is a Left-wing organisation and seeks to distance itself from being associated with fascism, yet its TV licence outfit virtually wear jackboots!

As an aside, when you look at quite a few other countries – including those who operate under the banner of Islam etc – they are also collectivist, some much more so than the west. Iraq, Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia and plenty more. These countries may not overtly spew political socialism as we know it, but their ideology is collectivist and that places them in the same camp as all the other far-lefties of the 20th century.

It’s a bit much to translate, so for Sloggers a few contributor comments – and many of these contributors also grew up in the old GDR:

“In an interview Joachim Gauck told of the harassment he and his family suffered under in the GDR. This included that his children could not take the Abitur (matriculation).
Gauck was a pastor, as was Mrs. Merkel’s father. But Mrs. Merkel was able to not only study, no, she could do a doctorate, also complete guest semesters abroad in Moscow, and also received a job after completing her studies – does that not all speak for itself?
And her activity in the FDJ Secretariat?
At the very least, a critical attitude towards the GDR regime can not be deduced therefrom – I do not trust her!”

Joachim Gauck was the feller that initially ran the organisation doing research on the Stasi files that survived late ’89/early ’90 – he is currently in discussion as the next President.

“Something is wrong there. Such a person could not be secretary for agitation and propaganda of the FDJ. Where covering up evidence and faking are concerned, in the meantime I trust the Merkel CDU to do anything!
The CDU should first off justify themselves that, after having spoken the truth for 40 years, according to which the East CDU was nothing more than a puppet of the SED, despite this they adopted the marionette party. In contrast, the FDJ Kanzleuse should first lift the ban on publication of the photos which show her as an IM sneaking up to the house of dissident Havemann!
The ban on publication of the photographs is unique in the Internet, because normally nothing goes missing on the Internet. Whereas a certain scandalous video of Christina Aguilera, despite court rulings and marketing manager, can still be found somewhere on the Internet, the Merkel photo is no longer findable. (…)”

“There is a persistent rumour that this first husband (Merkel) was the real author of the doctoral thesis from Ms. Kasner.”

“I think a description of the overall evolution of this chameleon would give more insight into her true convictions in the old Täterä. Kasner, her father, was a hardline Stalinist, who in the 50’s, when everyone else was fleeing the situation in the SBZ (Soviet Occupation Zone), went against the flow and settled in the Täterä. There he was a lackey of the SED regime and blessed with the nickname “Red Kasner”. Indeed, if she had not exhibited communist sentiments to 150%, Merkel would never have matriculated, studied and graduated. Also, she would most certainly not have been taken on as the FDJ secretary in an elite institution of the former dictatorship.
(…)
But once again to Mrs. Merkül:
Mrs Merkül is not really a communist, Mrs Merkül is also not really a Democrat, rather, Mrs. Merkül constantly adapts to the shimmering colours of the main steam and thereby does not baulk at – unscrupulously – any treachery or intrigue to stay in power.
Frau Merkül will become the first female caliph here in Germany.”

I’m really sorry but we’ll have to agree to disagree. You seem to have missed the whole point of the video -which carefully explained that left and right are exactly the same- both collectivist. You’re actually confirming what the video said has happened. You actually believe that there’s a difference between left and right. When there isn’t.
But that’s fine. You believe what you want.
It’s not mislead it’s misled by the way.

@Bob: Nope, I understood the video perfectly. And as I said, it accords with my own views based upon research. There IS a difference between Left & Right. That is a fact and Griffin entirely agrees with that. Left is collectivism and Right is individualism. However, as Griffin clearly points out, our political parties do not represent that difference but we are fooled into thinking they do.

Clear now? Perhaps it’s not me but: “You seem to have missed the whole point of the video”?

@Bob:
Sorry Bob, I’m not sure if you have a reading and comprehension problem or perhaps English is not your first language, but the logical conclusion of your comments is that the American Founding Fathers never existed, Libertarians don’t exist and I don’t exist. But all three groups did/do exist and believe in individualism.

So Left and Right[1] do exist. I’m sorry to burst your bubble.

Once more: Griffin is saying that our political parties do not represent the Left/Right difference because they are all collectivist.

I suppose it never occured to you that I may have watched the video before? Or that I may have seen a dozen videos and read 10 thousand articles and books about Left/Right? Or that I may have had a thousand debates with informed people about this subject?

The opinions in Griffin’s video are not new news. But I find it very satisfying that more and more people are slowly realising the truth…I am less happy about what will happen when the tipping point arrives…

@BT
“If so, who’s pulling the strings? Or is it simply that socialists have wriggled themselves into positions of power and are doing exactly what is expected, but not in a co-ordinated way?”

I know I’m not putting my point across very well but the answer to both your questions is the same, yes. Because it is the ideology that is the coherent ‘planner’ behind it all. It isbehind the conspiracy and everything those involved do, furthers it, the ideology. Thus there is no failure because whatever the result, especially chaos, is success.

So looking for evidence of a person or cabal co-ordinating things will fail.

Terrorism ‘cells’ operating under similar principles are an extreme example of the same principle.

Okay: Liz has goaded me to this in her inimitable style. Merkel has many faults, I am sure that any politician has. There is one thing that she has done that has received the ire and venom of the media: she has shown some backbone. She has not connived to bailing out the banks of Europe in the way that Britain has done in such a spectacular manner – and your Bank bosses still get bonusses. Okay he very generously rescinded his. What a stunning hero!! Will you ever see that 45bn back? If Commerzbank wants any more, it will get nationalized: precisely what the RBSs of this world fear to their boots.

I wrote this wholly unresearched and unhistorical piece as a witless riposte to the sour venom spouted at Merkel yesterday:

DAVID CAMERON: HIS LIFE OF FAILURE

All his life, David Cameron tried to be a failure. Even in this he managed to fail, despite a weakening back from having bent over too far at university. Again he failed here too, he failed to get his so coveted third, the mark of someone “who had better things to do than study”. He failed to fail at cricket, hoping for a place as twelfth man in the third eleven which would mean he would not have to embarrass himself with showing off his weaknesses to the world. He so desparately wanted to show to the world that he could fail! He had failed to get into Trinity, where all the money was made, Christchurch was a dump by comparison. He so wanted to be like Mr Brown the chancellor, who in failing to become prime minister was his hero. As a back bencher, David was in heaven, sitting on the green leather with a copy of the Telegraph and not be disturbed even when the gong was rung for tiffin. All he needed was a glass of single malt and a small packet with a straw*.

David took solace in the fact that he usually failed to make it though the first paragraph even with the help of his forefinger next to each letter. Until that fateful day when Mr Brown did become prime minister, and stunned poor David into the realities of politics, his hero had succeeded where he should have failed. The next blow was the cruellest: he was asked to stand for the leadership, and confident in his failings, he unleashed his damp ego and actually stood up. That he was actually elected as leader of the conservatives was bad enough, but like Mr Major, he won an election he had tried hard to lose – after all, he might be asked to do more than just shout at the other party irrespective of what they might actually be saying. But even in failing to lose he lost, he had the indignity of dealing with … liberals. Why could they not win? Had he not tried hard enough on their behalf? That damned voting system. His time in the shadows was at an end, where he could breeze through the day knowing that in twenty year’s time he could make an easy living with after-dinner speaking. Sadly, his happy life where the cut crystal remained hidden under the bench were but memories. It was lucky George who could drink on the front benches without censure, and that only on one day of the year.

David found himself on the international stage. He found himself dealing with slimy Sarko, who so proudly showed his allegiance to the private banks of his country to make David’s skin crawl. To show it so overtly was contrary to every cell in David’s body: keeping an outer mantle of respectibility was for David essential whatever he was doing behind other people’s backs. The French were just too gauche for him. However it was that very gorgon that turned his dreams finally to stony reality. That grey monolith from the DDR had looked him directly in the eye and told him that there would be no printing of money. How this hurt his pride and his ever hoped for vision of a level playing field where everyone could tilt their corner by unlimited quantitative easing. She was his antithesis and denoument: someone who stood firm against the storms and lashings where David hid in caves and cracks away from the storm. After all, he wasn’t a wet, was he?

@Jwoo:
OK thanks, I think I see what you mean more clearly now.
But IMO the ideology itself is not a conspiracy or planner of destruction etc because the ideology has plenty of superficial beliefs that point to a fairer/more just world. Marxists really believe this and whether it’s an ideology ‘intended’ to destroy is very subjective. Most people simply think it’s an ideology based upon the search for utopia.

You and I and many others may well believe that the ideology itself is flawed and will always result in disaster but its ‘true believers’ claim otherwise. And they can usually point to at least one successful policy.

A conspiracy (ie: regular discussions/meetings/action plans etc) can only be created and carried out by people. And the unknown issue in my mind is whether ‘true believers’ are engaged in a secret conspiracy to replace democracy, wreck western economies and return us all to serfdom etc or whether it’s simply that they’re following the theories of their ideology, believing that they are right and will create a fairer world etc.

If it’s a conspiracy then we need evidence to bring these people to book because that would probably be a crime in most countries.
If it’s simply that they’re following misguided beliefs and are utterly incompetent people, then all we can do is kick them out of office. There is a difference in my mind between these two explanations.

Would it help if I added that IMHO, Lefty ideologies are flawed and will always result in disaster (periods of Labour Govt in the UK are evidence of this). I have also said in the past (with tongue in cheek) that socialism is not an alternative model for governance but a mental disease. It’s more complicated than that but if I’m right, then socialism and all of its camouflage labels probably need to be proscribed. But I can’t see that happening.

Nothing whatsoever. Merely context. The problem for Merkel is that she is in a nasty position and hasn’t much in the way of ideas how to get out. What she is doing is standing by the things she has said, and in doing so is painting herself into a corner. That is the problem here: she won’t give in to the banks – which is one reason for all the venom spat in her direction by the MSM.

That Cameron has no paint and no position means he can walk in any direction chosen for him by whoever it is that tells him to go. It matters not for him for he does not care.

Merkel may be an unprincipled stony moloch remnant of the DDR, but at least she stands for what she says. My point in writing about Cameron was to show that Britain has many of the same problems – only that they are not being addressed.

The problem for Greece is that the time to address their problems sensible passed in 2000 before they joined the euro. You could equally say the same for Portugal and Spain. To my mind the Irish have the guts to pull themselves out of the mess they found themselves in. It is a good thing that Britain is not in the eurozone for I do not see Britain having the same gutsy character as the Irish.

@Gemz: Your repeated claims that Merkel is not giving in to the banks and is therefore a woman with guts seems to be undermined by the ECB money printing going on. I remain puzzled about how this is happening without the Bundestag & German electorate being up in arms.

I agree with you about the German taxpayers. I wonder myself why they are not making more noise about it – but remember that if they have a parliament anything like that in the Netherlands, then they have a parliament that has shown them respect in the past. (I refer to the scandal of the Telegraaf digging out three miscreants amongst the 150+ Dutch MPs. One had bought some sunglasses. Yes, they were really irresponsible and should have been prosecuted like the British ones were!!). That, sir, is how a parliamentarian respects his electorate.

British politicians using your good money to build themselves nice conservatories and other such niceties does not. Well it doesn’t to me, and it didn’t to some high ranking judges that banged them up either. What was the average fraud of the British MP? GBP3000 or more? or less?

The ECB is another matter altogether: for one thing it is not the Bundesbank whatever their proximity to each other may be. The ECB is doing things that the Bundesbank could not get away with, and frankly I wonder how it is. The problem is also that the ECB may be left holding its beloved $1trillion in banknotes all by itself, or have Sarkozy’s banks to fall back on! Merkel has her hand on the plug chain, and may well pull it yet. Cameron on the other hand gave it to his banking friends a long time ago.

@Gemz:
Your reversion to what’s going on in the UK is really a strawman diversion methinks. The issue under debate is the EU/EZ, not the UK.

And the fact remains that the ECB is printing money big time and Merkel must know about it. She has previously decreed that it will not be allowed to happen. I believe the Bundestag must know about it too. I believe the German judges (contitutional and others) must know about it too. So why is this not being shouted about by the German electorate? Are they being deceived by…erm…Merkel? Is there a political elite conspiracy in Germany to hide the fact that the ECB is running the printing presses? All things being equal, inflation will follow.

the irish are not gutsy, yet.the ordinary joe is being shafted to kingdom come. the elite, the usual bankers, pols,super rich, etc are laughing . remember there are only 4 million people here and the government have committed them to repaying zillions in private debt. a shitstorm is about to hit this place. im thinking about voting for gerry adams and im a f,,,,,cking brit!

“fact remains that the ECB is printing money” I would like some evidence of this, not MSM rubbish. Good hard facts.

I have my suspicions that the Fed’s dirty squad are pouring in the dollars though. That is quite a different issue altogether from the ECB printing (or more likely pressing a few buttons).

As to this discussion being about avoiding problems that should be faced in the UK, that is precisely the point I was trying to make here. The problem is not the EU or euro per se: it is the private banks and how they are to be dealt with. That Britain has effectively swept all this under their carpet is to my mind a part of the problem and certainly not an answer.

That Commerzbank is under threat of nationalization and RBS is not should show you the divergent manners in which two different countries approach this problem.

as a final thought: if the ECB is caught with its euros around its ankles (or more like up to its neck) it may find that the Germans will not support its actions. If the ECB is printing money for any reason, it will have hell to pay as well as some Germans.

Soapy posted a neat little video recently (that I posted back in October) showing the new demands that the EU can make of sovereign countries in the EU. What the EU cannot do is force a country through any other means than legal. The threatened country can simply say “NEIN” – look at what Frau Merkel has done so far.

@Gemz:
You shouldn’t need evidence of this methinks. It has become widespread knowledge. Someone posted a comment last week from a Danish Banker saying the ECB’s balance sheet has increased by 38% since last July. That is hard evidence from the ECB itself.

No, this is about the EU/EZ and the gross mismanagement of its crises by the political elites, notably Merkel & Sarkozy as the two top leaders.

Britain had its financial crises three years ago and RBS was essentially nationalised in all but name; the Almighty State now owns a large majority of its shares.
What Britain is now facing is fallout from the EU/EZ banking crises (after the French pixie claimed in 2008-9 that the banking crises was an Anglo Saxon problem. ho-ho).

Unlike many peole, whilst I do blame the banks for some of the finc problems, I attribute most blame to EZ govts and the political elites across Europe for allowing this mess to arise in the first place and then wandering around like headless chickens instead of dealing with it. Merkel is top of the list I’m afraid since she is nominally in charge of it.

“You shouldn’t need evidence of this methinks. It has become widespread knowledge. Someone posted a comment last week from a Danish Banker saying the ECB’s balance sheet has increased by 38% since last July. That is hard evidence from the ECB itself.” – that funding could have come from just about anywhere, and this is one of the problems. It could be US funds from their dirty squad, or backhanded repos from Commerzbank or Siemens banks or a hundred other ones.

Whatever else, RBS being “effectively nationalized” means “effectively private” in RBS terms. Commerzbank for all its bailouts hasn’t paid a bonus in three years*. What has RBS been up to since then? (*I have scoured the newspapers for evidence, but it seems to be taken for granted that they would not pay a bonus in a bailout culture as exists today. The Dutch ING chief had his withdrawn last year too). What is your dear bend-over-backwards Cameron doing about it save sitting down and enjoying another strawful?

No: it is not good enough. Britain has a heap of problems and they are not being addressed by flagrant money printing. For an economy at least 1/10 the size of the eurozone, the sums are staggering, in comparison the Eurozone is (taken as a total) solvent. It just takes my taxes to do it, that’s all – just like your taxes go to N Ireland and Wales.

I know that the leadership in Europe is doing a pretty bad job, but honestly this is where Britain could start shining politically by shutting everybody up and standing them in a row and giving them a good telling off. Cameron should have given Sarkozy a good slap: as for Merkel, would it make any difference if he did?

@Gemz:
On RBS…the UK government (ie taxpayer) has a large majority shareholding in the bank (IIRC it’s 83%). So it is not private, although it is being allowed to operate as one. I believe it makes its own lending decisions.

That arrangement was set up by the Brown Govt to prevent RBS collapsing. The issue going around now is whether the financial deal and contractual arrangements put in place by Brown, were tough enough on RBS and whether they should have explicitly banned executive bonuses.

There are pros/cons in that issue, but I’m sure that Brown was driven by fear of the bank collapsing (and the consequences on him) and fear of tabloids resorting to headlines of “Brown resorts to same old same old Labour nationalisation” etc. So he chose to take over RBS with a light touch. And that is where we are today.

so I come back to my other arguments: why does a Conservative government not do something??? Why is it that policies made by the previous incumbents – and roundly scolded by all and sundry here – are not put right?

The bank is effectively nationalized: the effect is that the bank gets away with blue murder as usual. It could be – and I stress the could here – very effective at re-starting the small and medium business sector. Instead … we have Cameron dithering and wishing he could get on with his career in public speaking.

@Gemz: The most likely reason why Cameron doesn’t change the terms of the RBS bailout is that what Brown did was closely in line with what the Tories advised at the time. Although their reasons for wanting it that way were different to Brown’s. Regarding RBS being involved in SME lending, I don’t think that will be seriously possible until it’s cleaned up its balance sheet, which was the cause of the mess in the first place,

Your article provides the details of Merkel’s Communist past in East Germany, though it is entirely ignorant of the fake collapse of the USSR/East Bloc, therefore it takes at face value Merkel’s seemingly opportunistic behavior.

Failure to mention KGB defector Major Anatoliy Golitsyn and his predictions that fake dissident movements would crop up in the USSR/East Bloc means that your coverage about Angela Merkel is
one-dimensional at best.

Most interesting post, and equally itersesting comments. I often wonder whether we have all underestimated the German desire for empire which has never subsided since 1900, and the German double talk of East vs. West, in its frantic efforts to reverse the outcome of 1945.

Reblogged this on Menschenrechtsverletzungen im Unternehmen BRD and commented:
Please, don´t believe there is no resistance against this STASI Merkel. But after 20 Years after the fall of the wall fascism became more and more established. This happened basicly via the deletion of the german basic law called “Grundgesetz” where the division of powers was defined. so all judges lost there status as a legal judge. German dissidents are arrestet in an absurd manor. “judges” declares them as brainsick and instruct them into the forensic psychiatry, where torture happens. 200.000 times a year ! http://www.3sat.de/page/?source=/kulturzeit/themen/151238/index.html – If you could spread it also to human rights organisations, it would be very kind of you. Best.

Please, don´t believe there is no resistance against this STASI Merkel. But 20 Years after the fall of the wall, fascism became more and more established. This happened basicly via the deletion of the german basic law called “Grundgesetz” where the division of powers was defined. So all judges lost there status as a legal judge. German dissidents are arrested in an absurd manor. “Judges” declares them as brainsick and instruct them into the forensic psychiatry, where torture happens. – 200.000 times a year ! – If you could spread it also to human rights organisations, it would be very kind of you. Best.